Abyss Odyssey review – hot Chile gaming

Chile’s most celebrated developer offers up a bizarre mixture of Castlevania and Super Smash Bros., but is it a successful cocktail?

Even with the rise of indie gaming most video games today are still made in either North America, Western Europe, or Japan. The rest of the world does get an occasional look-in, but almost never in terms of retail games or even big budget downloadable titles. Bucking that trend is far from the only way that Abyss Odyssey is strange, but despite its many and obvious flaws its sheer novelty makes it a difficult game to hate.

Developer Ace Team are from Chile, and their previous titles include the two Zeno Clash games and Rock Of Ages. All three feature wonderfully ornate visuals and surreal art design, as well as an unusual blend of wholly unrelated gameplay elements.

Of course it’s wrong to suggest that such oddness is simply because Ace Team are from a country not known for its video games (for all we know other Chilean developers are champing at the bit to make bland, soulless Call Of Duty clones) but it doesn’t seem too patronising to suggest that their different cultural outlook encourages a game that veers wildly from the established norm.

Rather than a first person fighting game (Zeno Clash) or Super Monkey Ball meets Tower Defense (Rock Of Ages) the action in Abyss Odyssey is a mixture of three genres: 2D platformer, fighting game, and roguelike. And although it is still very much it’s own game this does at least allow some sort of comparison with existing games, most obviously the 2D Castlevania series mixed with Spelunky.

A side benefit of Ace Team’s nationality is that the game is set in the Chilean capital of Santiago, so you don’t have to worry about saving New York from destruction for the hundredth time. Instead your concerns are directed at an army of monsters invading the city, which turn out to be the manifestation of a warlock’s dream world.

We can only assume he had a lot of cheese before bed, as the creatures are a wonderfully bizarre collection of monstrosities, looking like the joint creations of Hieronymus Bosch and Terry Gilliam. Fighting these creatures is a surprisingly complex affair, where guarding and dodging is just as important as attacking. But there are also fighting game style special moves, air dodges, and even cancels. All staples of the 2D fighting game, although it’s Super Smash Bros. whose combat the game resembles most closely.

Abyss Odyssey (PS3) – strange enemies

You can only wield one main weapon at a time, while enemies of the same type will be more or less powerful depending on what equipment they have with them. They also have a variety of fighting game moves at their disposal, including doges and launchers, and artificial intelligence advanced enough to make good use of them. It’s a shame then that despite all this the combat still feel very stiff and imprecise, and lacks the pace and flow of a top tier fighter.

As you’ve probably guessed from the roguelike reference the game is extremely difficult, although you can even things out a little by possessing an enemy and forcing them to fight alongside you. You can even control them directly if you have enough mana.

There’s another neat touch where if you die you get to control a less powerful (but still upgradeable) soldier, who can step in to revive your original character. Unlike the true permadeth of most roguelikes you get to keep your experience points and current level when you die, and all your money.

Even so, the harsh difficulty and the need for hours of level grinding in order to have a chance of beating more powerful enemies quickly begins to wear away at the game’s charms. And once again, although the promise of randomly-generated levels sounds great the end result is still a lot of very similar looking stages that lack the benefit of a hand-made design.

Even with the lack of truth permadeth progress is extremely difficult and impeded by enemies who are impossible to beat, not because you’re not skilled enough but because you simply haven’t levelled up enough. And despite the complex fighting mechanics, random levels, and nightmarish monsters the game still ends up feeling far more repetitive and predictable than many other games that are more rigidly linear in design.

Abyss Odyssey is another bold failure and although we can’t fully recommend it as a game we do still urge publishers to look for developers and game ideas from less obvious sources than just the developer farms of Canada, or yet another Californian start-up. Video games are played around the world and it would be better for everyone if their designers were just as varied in their origins. Even if some of their work is still very rough around the edges.

In Short: Some great ideas and fantastic graphics, but as fun as it is to see so many genres mixed together Abyss Odyssey doesn’t do any of them any real justice.

Pros: Great art design and visuals, and an agreeably unusual setting. Surprisingly complex combat and an imaginative blend of genres.

Cons: The fighting system isn’t as slick as a dedicated game and the randomly-generated levels lack variety. Too much level grinding and some nasty difficulty spikes.